reTREAT at Capon Springs

We left Friday after school to drive to Capon Springs for the Grace DC church reTREAT (That's how they were writing it on all their materials.). It took a couple of hours to make our way west and into the mountains. We went up and then down down on a gravel road into a "holler" in the woods where Capon Springs is located. It's just a mile or so across the Virginia state line into West Virginia about 12 miles from Strasbourg. It has an interesting history, and the same family has owned and run it for four generations. It could be a neat place for a family reunion, except that it isn't cheap at all. But it does include three square meals a day and snacks, plus all the entertainments desired right on the premises. You can look up the website for more details (http://www.caponsprings.net/). It's only 4 hours from Pittsburgh. We drove through 3.5 miles of Shenendoah woods to get there.

Amy and David below. David is getting really big and talking a lot.

Kevin and Christy Pulliam. What is that look on Kevin's face?

The beauty of fall...

The common green on Capon Springs and residential buildings.

The porch of our place...

Steve/Dad speaking. It's out of focus because I turned the flash off and I guess that takes the auto focus off. I'll have to try something else next time.

Great porches, hammocks, gliders, rockers, and easy chairs on all porches and green spaces. There's a full playground, a nice size pool, and a spa with beautiful bath rooms, massages, and reflexology (foot rubs I heard were really wonderful).

Eden was home!

Yes, for her 10 year high school reunion. So it was a quick trip. You can read more about it on her blog. But we loved having her here briefly, and I even got to go to the Saints football game (second half--they lost to Landon:().

A Perfect Autumn Day in Blue Ridge Country

Last Sunday was the most beautiful day. We've had many this fall, and many of those have been hotter than usual. But this was a mild and completely clear day. We headed out to a state park we've discovered. I wish I'd known about it when the kids were young because it isn't as far as Front Royal or the mountains, but it's between where we live and there. It's called Sky Meadow State Park and was donated land by the Melon family in what has become horse country Virginia. The view of the Blue Ridge Mountains is gorgeous though and the "meadow" truly is BIG. There are hiking trails and primitive camp sites as well as a farm on which they hold events, like fall festival.

Our hero in silhouette against the Blue Ridge!

This is Sky Meadow farm house where the farmer lived with 11 children. I could just imagine them running over one of the most beautiful 1000 acres as children. The house is furnished as of about the 1850s.

A Dad shot through grasses with interesting lighting. But he misses his 35 mm Olympus!

The first "real" hike since getting my cast off. Though the hills look rolling and gentle, they were really pretty steep, but very manageable.

One of several stiles ("The cat drank the milk and when it had finished, the cat began to kill the rat, the rat began to gnaw the rope, the rope began to hang the butcher, the butcher began to kill the ox, the ox began to drink the water, the water began to quench the fire, the fire began to burn the stick, the stick began to beat the dog, the dog began to bite the pig, the pig went over the stile and the old woman got home that night!" ). Remember that story from our old nursery rhyme book?
That's just the end of it, of course.

There are many many old stone fences, and they are truly a work of art. I tried to imagine the people building them without any mortar and with many different sizes and shapes...yet they are sturdy and stand forever (it seems). Do a lot of people line up and pile them all at once? Were they slaves or the farmer himself or his 11 children?

This is the new "Blue Ridge Farm." It's for sale, and it's called something like Ovaka Farm. http://www.thomas-talbot.com/t-tovoke.htm Anyone got an extra $4 million?

The fishing pond at Sky Meadow State Park. I wish they'd named it Big Sky Meadow
because I like the way that sounds better.

The end of a perfect day in the Virginia country-side.

At Grammy's birthday party here is the generation following Grammy! My sisters and me with two of our three first cousins: left to right are Linda (my cousin), Kathy (my sister), Fred (obviously my cousin since I have no brothers), Nancy (my sis), and me.

Jessica sent this picture today of an outing on Saturday into Monrovia. They had just finished doing a Bible story with the kids at this home. The little one wouldn't let go of Jessica, but though Jessica tried to get her to smile, she didn't. Maybe another time. See Eden's blog (http://edeng.blogspot.com) for some of Jessica's writing about a month ago in the post, "Dispatch from Monrovia."

Empty-Nester Thoughts & End of Summer Odds & Ends

We aren't technically empty-nesters, you know. David lives with us, and even though he is often gone all day and into the evening or even house-sitting somewhere for 10 days (just done), it is fun to have him to talk to and watch "The Office" with (I didn't watch the w-h-o-l-e thing). However, this is the quietest it's been here in...oh...say the 15 years we've lived here as of November 7 or so.
So, there are some things I like so far about it:

1. No one to yell at 3, 4, 6 times to get out of bed in the morning.
   
2. Only my own lunch to get in the morning (always leftover salad, if I bothered to make dinner the night before).
3. No pressure to rush home and get supper on by _____ because someone has to go there and someone else has to go there and we only have this 20 minutes to eat together if we want to preserve the family meal. (Dad/Steve is very flexible on meal times or even if we have a "meal;" however, David is less so.)
4. Significantly less things laying around in odd places where people walk in and drop them.

Things it's harder to like or adjust to:

1. Fewer people to say, "Good-bye. I love you." to in the morning.
2. No way to find out what's happening with the kids' friends.
3. When I hear the marching band, I know that my kids aren't there and that I am not planning to go there to see the game.
4. Not seeing the lights under the kids' doors or hear their muffled voices on cell phones.

Well, you get the picture. Speaking of which, here is a portrait of a lonely dog.


If Dad/Steve and David are both gone at supper time, as tonight, I sometimes get to treat myself to a supper of homemade tapioca.


And here is an odd story: We took our vacuum in for servicing because it started smoking (Thanks, Annie). Steve asked if he could have a loaner because how could we survive 3 weeks without vacuuming! The answer was no. So out of an honest heart, he asked if it would be okay to buy a reconditioned vacuum and then return it when we got ours back. The answer was NO. However, the woman working then thought about it and said Steve could take the vacuum below--period. Take it for keeps. Someone had returned it evidently without asking for a refund, and they didn't have anything to do with it. So, we have another vacuum while we wait for ours. It's actually quite nice, other than being purple.

Here are some pictures from our deck one day when the sun was bright and the flowers still pretty. Soon they will begin to get leggy and unwieldy
as October lengthens into real fall weather.

Dad/Steve enjoying the deck he worked so hard on. . . and it is a tranquil place.

And more of the deck and yard. Couldn't resist cause they're so pretty.

Good-Bye, Kids:(

The final good-byes in the parking lot after the "Service of Assurance & Affirmation."  It was different than when my parents sent me off from my driveway in Topeka, KS in a car load of college kids for Pennsylvania without so much as a hot pot, let alone a service of assurance and affirmation.  But really, I was so glad to be there!  August 25.

This is Rider House, Jonathan's residence.  His window is the top left one.

Jonathan's bed--yes, the one with the guitar on it and the sheets we sent Elliott off to UVA with.  Hope they feel soft.  They should.

Dad writing a note for Jonathan to find later at his desk in Rider House.

Jessica getting organized!

And. . . at the airport August 23 . . .

We thought this was her plane taking off, but really it wasn't.  She sat on the runway another 2 hours and the sprinted across JFK Airport in NYC while they held the door for her flight to Brussells.  Quite an experience, even for her mother vicariously!  Lots of phone calls via borrowed cell phones of other passengers about how to proceed if she missed her flight.  She didn't--thank God--even though her luggage did.  Another story....